Treasure Chest of Thoughts

This past week, I took a trip to Y City using a favorite vehicle of mine:  a novel.  Y City, written by Arkansas author Wade Rivers, recounts the tragedy that has befallen this “removed” town in western Arkansas.

A good read, this one held me captive, as I raced to discover the outcome of Harley, a 23-year-old kid, for whom I felt mixed emotions: anger, sorrow, concern, appreciation…appreciation for the fact that despite all things negative, he remained honest.

Interested in reviews of this novel?

1. Mrs. Gillmore’s Book Reviews:  my review
2. The Natural State Hawg:  written by another supporter of those from Arkansas.

After purchasing the novel, I asked my husband if he recognized the road pictured on the cover of the novel (see above)…I think I just might, or one very similar, somewhere in Arkansas.

Now, I sit waiting…on novel number two.

On November 5-6, I attended the Arkansas Curriculum Conference because of an educator who believes in empowering her students, in giving back, in leaving a legacy.  Dr. Julie Grady, my former professor at Arkansas State University, contacted me last spring and invited me to co-present with her at this conference.  Must say…I was very pleased, very honored.

Now I want to empower the teachers I work with in such a manner.

For Lyon College, I teach Secondary English Methods.  What a great opportunity to network, what a grand opportunity for resume enhancement!  My syllabus for this class is going through a metamorphosis…right now!

Then I think about my peers who are excellent teachers but who might not ever take that next step in developing their professional accomplishments.  This would be a “good thing” for them also.

I was very pleased when my niece who is attending ASU also sat in on the session that Dr. Grady and I presented…yes, my niece, the one majoring in English Education!  For Katie, this would also be an excellent opportunity to begin building her presentation skills on such a professional level.

Oh, the power of enpowerment!

To honor National Novel Writing Month, as you know, I entered NaNoWriMo’s contest.  While I have actually written much this week, I have yet to get to know my new friend, my character Cybil more, but she is waiting, a tad impatiently, but she is waiting.

Always looking for an opportunity for my students to write for the “real world,” I was excited to find this contest for a young adult novel, hosted by Gotham Writers’ Workshop.  What makes this an attainable goal for my students are the two guidelines:  a title and 250 words.

I wish you could have been in my class yesterday when I introduced this topic to my class…Kaitlin’s fingers immediately went to work.  Almost as if she needed me to say…”write a young adult novel.”  At one point, I asked…just to clarify…and, yes, through her fingers came the tapping of a novel, a well into which I just happened to “tap.”

Another student expressed her unhappiness with the guidelines.  “Only 250 words?”  I simply encouraged her to continue to write, for I am sure when she wins this contest that the literary agent will want to see more than that mere 250 words.  Right?

The moral of this blog post is this:  you never know when that one creative assignment is the inspiration for great rewards. 

Who knows…the next Laurie Halse Anderson, Jodi Picoult, Stephanie Meyers, P.C. Cast…that author just might be sitting in my room.

Listen…can you hear the tapping of creativity?

_______________________________________________

Interested in another teacher’s experience with this project?  Please check out this article  ”A School-for-Scribes Program Turns Kids into Novelists” in Edutopia spotlighting teacher Carol Pogash and her students.

I signed up for another challenge.  Completed the RIP Challenge…so why not?

Okay, I just have to say this, I do not see any way that I can complete this one, but to just start this one is a success for me.

I had seen the word NaNo WriMo…(honestly, my initial thoughts were Mork and Mindy.  You remember, right?  NaNo, NaNo.)  Dana Huff, English teacher and author of A Question of Honor, blogged about this challenge and her plans to participate and I thought, “Why not?” 

I made this decision yesterday…with a blank slate.  Dana Huff encouraged me further when I read her comments on Twitter:  “I have a vague idea of the plot, but not sure. I do have the setting and a couple of characters.”

From that comment, I explored the NaNoWriMo site, hoping for an escape clause on the word novel…you know a work of fiction, for within me lies the story of the miracle of my daughter. I already know the title:  Spring Through a Window, a metaphor for the faith I always had for my daughter’s journey through three surgeries on her heart and the effects of this journey on so many people.

But no escape clause could be found, just the wording ”The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30,” so I waited until today to begin.  I have no title, no plot, no minor characters, but I do have a main character, and I like her.  She may be an extension of two characters I have created for my English classes, maybe a combo of Hollywood and my duck Olivia Noel.

Please meet Cybil…all 192 words of her…

Once upon a time…oh, to begin this tale in such a manner, but I cannot.  You see, this is the real-life story of Cybil.  I know, who names her child Cybil?  Well, obviously my mother did, for she was once a huge fan of Moonlighting.  See?  I said once.  Networks do not even re-run this weekly favorite of many, or, at least, a favorite of my mother’s.  I have seen this Cybil-lady, though, in some movies.  All-in-all, not too bad of a name.

Let’s see.  I digress.  Back to my tale.

Where does one begin to tell the journey that I began somewhere in elementary school, one where I went from a cute little red-headed baby to the Plain-Jane of Plain-Jane’s.  You know who I am talking about, that girl you look at and feel sorry for her because, even though she is “one of the nicest girls you will ever get to know,” she is just average.

This day-to-day journey continued throughout elementary and into junior high.  At this point, though,  I discovered the power of plainness.  Invisibility.  I could disappear and not be missed.  For I was just plain Cybil…who moonlighted.

Where does Cybil go from here?  Not sure…but maybe, just maybe there will be a Bruce Willis (of sorts) in her future?

According to Better World Books, November is National Family Literacy Month.

And I have an idea.

We require six reads per student per nine weeks.  Due to such busy schedules, timing of this nine weeks around three holidays (if you count pre-Christmas activities), and because I want to encourage this month’s theme, well, I have idea.

In place of one their reads, their parent/guardian may read a novel during the month of November.  Or should I say the parent/guardian may read a novel FOR the student? 

To receive credit for this read, the student and parent/guardian must discuss this selection, and then the student  must blog about this experience.

Surely, this is a win-win situation.  Yes?

Throughout the months of September-October, I participated in Stainless Steel’s RIP Challange and posted here the four novels I had planned to read.  Those listed below are the ones I actually read, though:  

1. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
2. Hunted by P.C. and Kristen Cast
3. The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl
4. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

You may check out my reviews of these novels posted at Mrs. G’s Book Reviews…please read!

Upon checking my Twitter account after a few days’ absence, I discovered that I was “spamming” other Twitter follows.  Yuck!  My dislike for Spam was instantly reiterated!

What is Spam?  According to the first source when I conducted a search (Yes!  Wikipedia!):  Spam is the abuse of electronic messaging systems (including most broadcast media, digital delivery systems) to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately.

As I skimmed this article, though, I developed three conclusions:

1. Instead of spammed, I might have actually spimmed (each media has its own term…email = spam; instant messaging = spim, and so on).
2. These spammers just want to make a living…they are simply advertising.  For the most part.  At my expense.
3. Spam has a tinge of evilness to it! I felt a sense of violation.  No one asked my permission!

The best advice I received, though, came from my Twitter PLN, one of several that I spammed/spimmed:

 2020Nexus  @tgillmoreFYI Spam DM’s coming from your account. You may want to change your password.
8:09 AM Oct 29th from web  

 You may want to change your password.  Oh, this is why our school technology department requires that we change our email passwords every few months!  This is also why I will be more conscientious about changing other passwords.

Sitting here, reflecting, it just dawned on me (actually, quite literally, as I have also watched the sun rise on this beautiful morning) that you have not met the duck characters that my students created in our Ducks Galore project that I referred to in an earlier post!

Please check out this voice thread (by clicking on the picture) on which the students recorded an introduction to their duck for their peers:

This is our first project…and a collaborative one, at that!…using this tool. I soon discovered that students who would gladly talk all class period were suddenly shy, nervous, even insecure when it came to recording their introductions (and most of them recorded in private!).

The students learned/utilized several important skills here, though.

1. Sometimes the audience is not just the teacher…probably the toughest audience one ever has is peers.  Right?
2. They each requested access to our class wiki Cafe Pre-AP where this Voice Thread is housed.
3. They learned how to create avatars and to leave comments on a Voice Thread.
4. Using tone, they presented their introductions in a varied way from just writing it down on paper or even just turning to their neighbor and verbalizing their tone of voice.

All-in-all, this was a good project!  Now to develop another voice thread project where they are the writer, producer, director…lots of tremendous skills in that one!

Like this project?  Here’s the link!

This week during the meeting of one of my peer PLN’s (my Classroom Redesign Team), colleague Lisa Huff mentioned the term tradigital, a word that caught my attention, a quite interesting combination of terms, one that sounds much more interesting than the term I have been touting lately…blend. 

Tradigital?  Blend?  Yes..tradigital sounds much more interesting!

Therefore, I went where most of us go when initiating a search:  that’s right…Google.  When scanning down the list of results, I encountered this link to Word Spy:  http://www.wordspy.com/words/tradigital.asp

Ahhh…very interesting!

Below the “Example Citation,” the owners of this site then list the “Earliest Citation,” followed by “Notes.”

Thus, intrigued, I decided to check out other trendy vocabulary.  Today’s word is peanut-buttering, defined as “spreading the resources of a company or person too thin.”  Peanut-buttering…that word just might describe me!

Will such vocabulary appear on the ACT, SAT, Arkansas’ End-of-Level 11th Grade Literacy Exam?  Probably not in the near future.

I have subscribed to this site’s feed; think I will ask my students to add this feed to their Google Reader.  Knowing some of their busy schedules, I do think that many of them are peanut-buttering also as they sit in our tradigital classroom. 

This, I think they need to know!

Today, my own version of a sci-fi world continued as I created this cartoon strip for my World of Hollywood using ToonDoo:

Very easy to use, this cartoon strip took me just minutes to create (once I learned how to navigate the system).  ToonDoo provides many images and backdrops and literally with just a few clicks, I had this one created.

As you may recall, I created Hollywood last year using HeroMachine 2.5 for the Pre-Ap English 10’s multi-genre sci-fi project.  Just to review, Hollywood’s goal to save those innocent little fifth grade girls from the advances of the want-to-be-fifth-grade-boyfriends.  (I am probably having too much fun with this storyline!)

This, the creation of the cartoon,  is an excellent way to review punctuation of dialogue.

This year, instead of each student creating a new world, each lit circle group is creating one new sci-fi world…and, oh, the dialogue that occurs as they debate, discuss, and, sometimes, agree to disagree!  Good project for working on group dynamics!

The groups will present their final projects using Glogster, which has recently released a version for the education world.  Thank you, Glogster!  Yes, more updates on that to follow!